M Focus on: Streets, Highways & Bridges
St. Augustine seeks resiliency going forward By BETH ANNE BRINK-COX | The Municipal
The beautiful city of St. Augustine, Fla., is the oldest city in the nation, filled with historic homes and other examples of treasured architecture. It is also a city that is plagued with recurrent flooding, which threatens or even destroys those historic buildings. Before the city could disappear forever, a huge study was done to determine prevention measures to minimize damage while speeding up recovery. A grant-funded study began with Taylor Engineering in the lead and several subconsultants: Lisa Craig with The Craig Group; Place Economics; Marquis Latimer + Halback Inc.; and Archeological Consultants Inc. The city of St. Augustine’s “Resilient Heritage in America’s Oldest City” was recognized for Outstanding Achievement in the Resilient Preservation category. The results of this study outlined best practices for resiliency strategies that can be used in historic districts nationwide. The comprehensive final document identified methods for prioritizing 32 THE MUNICIPAL | FEBRUARY 2022
archeological sites threatened by rising seas, outlined the economic impacts of previous and future flooding events and recommended potential solutions such as mitigation strategies and policy revisions. Having city-wide vulnerability assessments, adaptation strategies and mitigation planning for flooding and sea level rise were valuable sources of
ABOVE: A coastal city, St. Augustine is susceptible to flooding, not only during hurricanes. (Photo by Sean Pavone; provided by the city of St. Augustine)
information for the city’s policymakers and the community’s property owners. “Three pilots/concepts came into play, and now we are looking for funding to move them forward,” said Jessica L. Beach, chief resilience officer of the public works department in St. Augustine. Flooding is usually thought of in tandem with hurricanes and other storms, but that’s not always the case. “We have rainfall flooding and surge flooding and even sunny day flooding, which is caused by really high tides and sunny weather,” said Beach. “And we have compound flooding, when two or more flooding sources occur simultaneously or subsequently within a short time. For all of this, we have lots of different strategies to work with. We’re trying to
